Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Tuesday Top Ten Twelve: for the list maker in me and the list lover in you

As you may have read below, I'm getting ready to leave on that trip which has filled me with much aging anxiety... but one good thing about aging in terms of movie-loving: you get perspective. It's impossible to look at any current actor / director / critical / movie and attendant audience response and assume that the gradations of love or hoopla in place now are permanent things ...even your own feelings change. Actors fade or grow in stature, celebrities pop up out of nowhere, films that everyone loves people forget about and the reverse happens, too.

I was wandering 'round the web today and chanced upon this cover of Life magazine celebrating the movies in 1986! So long ago... but I remember being excited to buy it in high school. This was long before those Vanity Fair Hollywood issues. Jessica Lange, Sally Field, Barbra Streisand, Goldie Hawn and Jane Fonda are listed as "Hollywood's Most Powerful Women"... that wasn't completely accurate even at the time considering that Meryl Streep and Kathleen Turner were the top superstars by anyone's sane account of mid 80s American cinema. But back on topic: these five movie careers were all about to shrink rapidly.

It got me to thinking about who I love now versus who I loved then so herewith are a dozen favorites (I couldn't restrict myself to ten) from the past twenty-five years. Not all of them are doing so well at the moment and some are now too old for lead roles in Hollywood but if you smoosh all those years together this is something approximating my dozen favorites --the women that I was seeing as I morphed from casual moviegoer to the über film fiend I am now.

If we make it a baker's dozen you'd see one of these names in the mix: Angela Bassett, Helena Bonham-Carter, Juliette Lewis, Emma Thompson, Tilda Swinton, Toni Collette, Joan Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Miranda Richardson or Christina Ricci. But this is a quarter century of love compiled... Obviously the top dozen of right now would be much different and quite a lot younger.

12Nicole Kidman. Age: 40. First feature: BMX Bandits (1983). First time I saw her: Days of Thunder (1990)... I was not impressed. When I started to take her seriously: To Die For (1995). When I fell in love: Moulin Rouge! (2001). Her three best performances: Moulin Rouge! (2001), Birth (2004) and either The Others (2001) or To Die For (1995) depending on which day you ask me. I can't wait for: Australia (2008).

10Mia Farrow Age: 63. First feature: John Paul Jones (1955). First time I saw her: Broadway Danny Rose (1984). I love her primarily due to that long and fruitful collaboration with Woody Allen. It ended poorly, sure. But not before they gave the cinema many treasures. Her three best performances in this time frame: The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Alice (1990) and Broadway Danny Rose (1984). Also Oscar nomination worthy in Husbands and Wives (1992) and that's not even counting her earlier work. She's my choice for the #1 most egregiously Oscar snubbed actor of all time. That's right... in the entire history of Oscar's 80 years she has the most cause to bitch.

09Uma Thurman. Age: 37. First feature: something from 1988. She made four movies in her first year. When I first saw her & fell in love lust: Dangerous Liaisons (1988)... it wasn't true love yet because I had a hard time seeing past Glenn Close & Michelle Pfeiffer at the time. Uma and I have had a rocky relationship and she may be the least purely talented of these 12 women but I shan't lie and pretend that my heart doesn't beat faster when I see her, no matter how uneven her work may be. Her three best performances: Kill Bill, Vol. 1 (2003), Henry & June (1990) and Pulp Fiction (1994). Next movie: Life Before Her Eyes, a survivor's guilt drama in which Evan Rachel Wood plays her younger self.

08Dianne Weist. Age: 59. First feature: It's My Turn (1980), a Jill Clayburgh vehicle. First time I saw her: Footloose (1984). When I fell in love: The Purple Rose of Cairo (1995) --a brief but endearing role. Her three best performances: Bullets Over Broadway (1994), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) --were two Oscar winning performances by the same performer ever this different? -- and Parenthood (1999). She's the only performer in my lifetime that the Academy ever got it exactly right with in terms of nominations and wins for the exact right performances. Next up for Dianne: Part of the delicious stacked feminine ensemble of Synechdoche New York (2008).

07Holly Hunter. Age: 49. First feature: The Burning (1981). First time I saw her and it wasn't just me who fell in love: Raising Arizona and Broadcast New (1987) a back to back wonder. Her three best performances: In what movie is she not amazing? Here's an old top ten. My sentimental fav' in some ways: Living out Loud (1998). Next up for Holly: more Saving Grace on television (see: related post)

06Susan Sarandon. Age: 61. First feature: Joe (1970). First time I saw her: a midnight showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show (1977) in the 80s of course. Her three best performances in this time period: Dead Man Walking (1995), Thelma & Louise (1991) and Bull Durham (1988). True story: I carried a picture of her in my wallet for many years. Next up: Playing "Mom Racer" in Speed Racer (2008). Anxiously awaiting some filmmaker to give her a big juicy lead again. If Julie Christie, Judi Dench and Helen Mirren can get leads and Oscar nominations for their efforts, why not Sarandon?

05 Kate Winslet. Age: 32. First feature, when I first saw her and when I fell in love: all in one glorious package which happens to be Peter Jackson's best film and happens to be called Heavenly Creatures (1994). Her three best Performances: Holy Smoke (1999), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) and Sense & Sensibility (1995). Next: appearing on every ballot of my Actress Psychic Contest for either The Reader or Revolutionary Road. Seriously y'all: Calm down!

04Kathleen Turner. Age: 53. First feature: Body Heat (1981). When I first saw her and fell hard: Romancing the Stone (1984). More Kathleen Turner loving here.

These final three ladies I talk about too much. Hell, maybe I talk about all twelve too much. Next month I'll restrain myself from frequent topics and go new places. Promise. But today, I must indulge. It's my comfort food before a stressful trip. If you haven't had enough and are curious you can click away for redundant drooling.

03Julianne Moore Age: 47. For much Mooooore, see previous posts. Julianne has two chances to win me back this year with Savage Grace and Blindness. Otherwise, I don't know what I'll do. We've been estranged.

Twenty-Five years of cinema. 1983 to 2008... who makes your list? And if you've only recent succumbed to the cinema in full, which actress from the past quarter century are you most to investigate? It's easier than it ever was to get acquainted with cinematic years gone by.*

I think her most underrated performances are Dangerous Liaisons (she should have won at least a Breakthrough award), Final Analysis, Les Misérables, Tape and.... Batman and Robin ! Come on, people, it was bad on purpose, she knew the film was trashy/camp so she was completely appropriate, and she went for it (and she looked super hot in spandex - or was it lycra ?)

Special recognition for Angelina Jolie, for being the only actress able to sell female characters both sexy and agressive, both feminist and eye-candy, for never playing the "girlfriend" and for being able to remain somethat classy even when playing wild chicks. Beauvoir and Sagan would have loved her.

I'm sure after Changeling and Atlas Shrugged and a few more films she'll make my list, now that she's doing "serious" drama again.

I love posts like these; they remind me of how much of a cinema novice I really am. I mean, just from your list Nathaniel, there's countless films mentioned that I was hitting myself in the face saying "I need to see that!". La Pfeiffer I've seen in THREE films. That's THREE. And you don't wanna know which three they were (is my reading license revoked? ;) I promise to rectify as soon as possible!)

John Paul Jones was a 1959 release, and the last feature directed by Mia's father, John Farrow. I really liked Mia in Be Kind Rewind but Oscar love will pass by in part because the film was no hit, and was one of the final releases from New Line.

By the way, I read something of a possible merger of Picturehouse and Warner Independent Pictures.

You should have mentioned this was an English language contest, because I can't see how Isabelle Huppert could have been left out. Just remember La Pianiste, La Ceremonie, Merci Pour Le Chocalat, L'Ivresse du Pouvoir...

And you're criminally underestimating Jodie Foster again! She is such a talented actress that sometimes I can't believe what I'm seeing. Last week I saw Accused again. I was totally on your side, that Glenn Close should have won, but now I have to endorse that Oscar. I was wrong. Foster is fantastic.

Also, count me among the non-fans of Meryl Streep (and Nicole Kidman, for that matter). I've liked several of her performances, e.g. Madison County, Music of the Heart, Out of Africa, Postcards from the Edge - but I saw each of those before I turned 15 and her twitchiness became false and grating to me. I don't know if I want to spoil my memories of the above performances by revisiting them.

goran the reasons there are no foreign performers is that it's the top of 25 years of moviegoing... and i live in america and though i deeply love some foreign stars ---it's rare to have seen as complete a picture of their careers ---if we're talking "all time" Deneuve is top ten... but this list does not include anything from the 60s or 70s...

as for Binoche. I like her but I'm never been deeply committed to her career. i've never been obsessed. and to make a "top" of this sort, there has to be a little obsession in there ;)

I just want to say that if there's an actress who deserves to be in the spotlight in the next decade, it's Robin Wright (Penn ?) : she's starting to break into more awards-friendly, high-profile films. She's in New York I love you, in State of play alongside Crowe and Mirren (former Oscar winners) and The Private lives of Pippa Lee (based on a screenplay penned by Day-Lewis's wife and Julianne Moore co-stars).